interest in this part is the material on the study and proc-
essing of the results of special statistical inquiries into
the state of agriculture, especially the peasant economy,
in a number of European countries.
Lenin gives a model of scientific analysis of agrarian
relations, application of the Marxist method in processing
social and economic statistics, and critical use of bourgeois
sources and writings. Lenin adduces reliable data to refute
the assertions of bourgeois economists, reformists and revi-
sionists, and shows that in agriculture as well large-scale
capitalist production is more effective than small-scale
production and tends inevitably to supplant it, that small
peasant farms are being expropriated by big capital, and
that the toiling peasantry is being ruined and proletarised.
That is the general law governing the development of agri-
culture on capitalist lines, although it may differ in form
from country to country.
In his critical remarks on the works of S. Bulgakov,
F. Hertz, M. Hecht, E. David, and K. Klawki, Lenin refutes
the bourgeois reformist theories which extol small farming
and assert that it is “superior” to large-scale production.
He exposes the tricks used by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois
economists to minimise the earnings of the big farms and
exaggerate those of the small. Lenin counters the false eulo-
gies to the “viability” of the small farms—due allegedly
to the small farmer’s industry, thrift and hardiness, by
showing that small-scale production in agriculture is sus-
tained by the back-breaking toil and poor nutrition of the
small farmer, the dissipation of his vital forces, the deterio-
ration of his livestock, and the waste of the soil’s productive
forces.
Lenin has some particularly sharp words for the reformists
and revisionists who “fool others by styling themselves
socialists”, and put more into prettifying capitalist reality
than the bourgeois apologists themselves. Lenin makes
a detailed analysis of E. David’s Socialism and Agriculture—
the main revisionist work on the agrarian question—and
shows it to be a collection of bourgeois falsehood and bias
wrapped up in “socialist” terminology.
At the same time, Lenin takes pains to sift and examine
any genuine scientific data and correct observations and